07 Jul Online Dating: Good Thing or Bad Thing?
Online dating, once a fringe and stigmatized activity, is now over a $2 billion industry. Over 40 million Americans have given online dating a try, and over a third of the American couples met online.
The first prominent online dating site was Match, which launched in 1995. eHarmony started in 2000, OkCupid in 2004, and more recently, a wave of mobile people-swiping apps, like Tinder and Hinge, have become wildly popular.
But is this a positive development or something to be concerned about? Is online dating making the world better and dating more effective, or is something important being lost or sacrificed as a result? Ideally, what would dating look like in 2030?
Tim's Answer: I think this is a no-brainer positive development. I think the term “online dating” is part of the problem and makes people who don't know much about it think it refers to people forming entire relationships online and only meeting in person much later.
Simply considered as online meeting people, it makes a ton of sense. I've already expressed my argument for why in two posts: one on how critical it is to find the right life partner and how seriously we should take that quest, and another on why going to bars is a terrible life experience. The first step in ending up with https://lonelywifehookup.org/bbw-hookup/ the right person is meeting the right person, and for something so important in our lives, we've had no real system for doing it efficiently and intelligently. For socially weird or anxious or shy people, trying to meet a stranger in public is a nightmare, and even for someone charming and outgoing, it's a grueling task that requires a lot of luck. The alternative that often happens is meeting someone through friends, which can work, but it's limiting yourself to single people your closest friends and family happen to know.
The way the current trend is heading, what will dating be like in 2030, and will that be a better or worse time to be on the dating market than 1995?
Effective dating definitely needs to take place in person, the same way your grandfather did it, but I see no good reason why meeting people to date in the first place can't be systematic and efficient.